Gary Brown: There has to be a plan behind a good Father’s Day gift

Friday

Jun 18, 2010 at 12:01 AMJun 18, 2010 at 5:18 PM

Dad was unfailingly gracious in receiving each year’s gift. He would gratefully accept a small, wrapped package that looked like a box of wood screws. Still he was able to feign surprise and wonder aloud, “What could this be?”

Gary Brown

My fondest memory of Father’s Day is giving the loving gift of hacksaw blades.

Apparently, the small children of a carpenter are very practical when it comes to Father’s Day gifts. Some dads’ cups runneth over. Pop’s tool chest was crammed with backups of every known hand tool or carpentry accessory that could be hung on a lower hook or stacked on the bottom shelves of hardware stores.

Dad was unfailingly gracious in receiving each year’s gift. He would gratefully accept a small, wrapped package that looked like a box of wood screws when it was being brought to him, sounded like a box of wood screws when a young son dropped it on the floor before bestowing it, and felt like a box of wood screws when he scooped it up off the living room carpet. Still he was able to feign surprise and wonder aloud, “What could this be?”

Well, last year it was a six-pack of screwdrivers. It only stands to reason ...

Difference in parents

Mother’s Day is a more sentimental holiday. Kids buy their mothers candy — knowing full well they’re going to get some of it, maybe all of it. They hand over flowers with the misguided belief that their moms won’t recognize the posies from flower beds that only are a few feet from the back door.

Very young kids can even get away with making their own Mother’s Day cards, sketching stick figure families with crayon, and later they’ll still find them hanging on the refrigerator.

Something hanging from the Frigidaire, that’s really all it took when I was a child to make Mom’s day special.

Dads are different

Father’s Day seemed to take more planning. A child has to determine his dad’s interests — at a time of life when the kid really only thinks of his own. Then he has to figure out a gift to match those interests.

Before he quit smoking, my father enjoyed a good cigar or puffing on a pipe. But what small-town store owner is going to sell a 6-year-old a box of Corona stogies or a tin of Prince Albert pipe tobacco?

Other than that, Dad liked to work and watch baseball. But he already had a TV and a recliner chair.

That left the hacksaw blades. Or a variety pack of power-sander paper. Perhaps a selection of chisels. Maybe a trio of vice grips.

I recall one special year when my siblings and I all chipped in and we got dad a socket set — with metric measurements — in a heavy-duty plastic carrying case.

Now that was a Father’s Day to remember. I thought I actually saw a smile on Dad’s face and tear in his eye. But it might just have been a grimace because I dropped it on his foot.